In the face of the horrific, brutal murder of Nick Berg, I am here to say, Ive had enough! I will no longer let my somnambulant friends and acquaintances get away with their disregard and lack of concern for the war against radical Islam. I will no longer allow them to dismiss the lies, the mischaracterizations, the half-truths and the politically motivated distortions perpetrated daily by the left-leaning media and the Democratic Party. I will no longer sit by and be frustrated by the shrill, hollow shout-downs of those who would never be willing to stand for anything (unless, of course, it is to oppose core, traditional American values and beliefs). I will no longer let these things pass. From now on, every correspondence I send, every conversation I conclude, every checkout person I encounter, every waiter I tip, every friend I meet, in short, every human contact I have will conclude with a cry, with a prayer, with a unifying reminder of what our collective lives must be united against, what our actions and words must strive to live up to, what we must all always bear in mind as we work and play and live and love and laugh and cry. We must always:

Remember Nick Berg!

As in wars past, Americans came together under the rallying cries of Remember the Alamo! and Remember the Maine!, today you and I must, we must keep in mind the great threat that would seek to wrest from all of us our God-given rights of freedom and liberty. We are involved in a great conflict which many have refused to acknowledge, and which many Americans have forgotten. Think of how quickly the pictures of the attack on 9/11 disappeared from our public view. Think of how muffled the truth about our war has become (it is not a war on terror, but a war on radical Islamsee Andrew McCarthys piece at Nationalreviewonline.com). Well, we can no longer allow Americans the luxury of forgetfulness (or semi-consciousness). We can no longer allow the anti-American bias that permeates so many of our institutions (and, indeed, all of the information-generating, public opinion-shaping, education-offering mechanisms in our country) to saturate the American psyche with the self-loathing guilt without voicing with equal regularity a ready response. Not when innocent civilians such as Nick Berg are being sacrificed to the false god of radical Islam. People must not be allowed to get away with complacency any longer. The Left must not be allowed to get away with its hatred of America any longer. Stagnation today, could well mean Americas surrender tomorrow. America must be awakened, reminded that she is under attack. She must be reminded that the enemy is vile, inhumane, savage, hate-filled. America must be reminded that she is not the aggressor here; she is not filled with evil and corruption. She is not what is wrong with this world. And the phrase:

Remember Nick Berg!

Will serve to do just that. So, I encourage you to join me in reminding Americans everywhere at every moment throughout the day to Remember Nick Berg. Think how it could be if every day Americans everywhere heard or saw the phrase, Remember Nick Berg! dozens of times throughout the day. Maybe, just maybe, it would change the hearts and minds of a few (or a few thousand) to stir to wakefulness their slumbering patriotism. Maybe it would remind someone not to take Americas benefits for granted. Maybe it would dull in the mind of someone the impact of the incessant droning of the anti-American Left. Maybe it would be a reminder just to yourself about who and what your are, what you stand for, what you believe in, what America is all about.

Remembering Nick Berg can be more than remembering the person. "Remember the Maine" was a call to arms to incite a response to an event. By saying, "Remember Nick Berg" I am saying in a short, condensed way, that America must respond to the cowardly, horrific actions taken by Islamo-terrorists with the will and determination that only people who cherish and value freedom and liberty can muster.

I gotta tell ya, if I remember nick berg as of now it will be as something of a maroon. I cant believe he went to a war zone and wandered around until he got killed. its just too weird. I think we should hold of until all the facts are in before nomiinating him for hero.

11
posted on 05/13/2004 1:52:59 PM PDT
by beebuster2000
(the only thing quagmired is the lib mind)

Yes, the person Nick Berg may well be taken for a naive fool. But Nick Berg was a civilian, a non-combatant--the kind of individual that terrorists seem to single out for their brand of religion. As a civilian Nick Berg's death is, at best, wrong. As an American, Nick Berg's death is an afront. As an event, Nick Berg's death must be our wake-up call. You or I or someone you or I love could be the next Nick Berg.

Hi. I'm a student at Vero Beach High School. I am a sophmore and I would like to speak my mind about this whole Nicholas Berg issue. Today in my photography class we were read the newspaper that talked about the beheading of Nicholas Berg. We are dealing with a photo war not a fighting war. In my opinion I think it's wrong, but maybe we deserved it. We abused the Iraqis first and now we complain about how what they did is wrong? What if they were told to do that by an upper ranking? The American soldier that held the Iraqi on a leash nude was doing was she was told. So if someone of the higher rank told someone in the lower rank to kill themselves they sure would just because it is the higher ranks oders? In what way does it make us right and them wrong? If this is the case then why didn't the president do anything back when the racism was going on or anything in that issue? If we have freedom, why aren't we allowed to view the photos? Some people say that it's the families choice, but the president says that it's making everything worse. I say, if we are going to be drafted soon or in the next few years why can't we see what's going on? Why does everything that happens in Iraq have to be a secret? What really happened between Bush and Osama? Why aren't we allowed to be told all the facts? Why didn't the soldier that held the man on a leash nude not be punished? If it was an American citizen things would have been delt with in a different way. I don't understand why we are having a war. President Bush was all for the war, but now that something so terrible happens, he thinks of the war in a different way. He apologizes to the Iraqis for what the soldiers have done to them. Why?, he put everything on himself. Bush is now noticing that when he put the photos out in the real world his campaign was going down. Is all Bush cares about is votes??? Why do we have to go fight? Students went through 12 years of school and may be in college and now you want to draft them when they're starting their life? What for? All that is going to happen is they are going to die and then what? Another family has to be sad because of what happened to their child! I want to see someone with an government job fight in the war and see what it's really like! They say we shouldn't worry about this we are kids, we have lives to live. Well what lives?, all we are doing is working hard for nothing. Why don't they just listen to us??????? There is no freedom of speech! We can't say certain things at school or anywhere else so where's the freedom at????? Are we supposed to have freedom when all this is going on!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why can't they just stop?, they don't see they are just making Iraq more and more mad. Now Iraq knows it's bothering us and they know they can get to us! It's wrong! I have a lot more to say so please keep in touch!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was prompted to start this thread when yesterday I heard the audio from the execution of Nick Berg on Michael Savage's radio program (a program that I've never had the chance to listen to before). Nick Berg was butchered like an animal. There are no other words to describe how listening to his screams made me feel except to quote from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, "The horror! The horror!" Even this fails to give fullness to the overwhelming sense of disgust, outrage, shock I felt listening to Berg cry out. His screams seemed to last for almost a full minute. Imagine the suffering he endured in his last moments on earth as that monster hacked into his neck with a simitar (sp). Imagine the gore, the crude slashing back and forth against bone. Imagine the screams. I will not forget it. I agree that the pictures should be made available (how pictures are being used to try to implicate all of America right now, how they are trying to use pictures to heap guilt upon our collective heads, how pictures stir the outrage of the Arab world against us). I say, use the photos of Nick Berg's execution as a reminder of who is the real evil here. I say publish the photos, distribute the video. Let America be reminded again and again of the evil we are facing, the despicable, animalistic depravity that dwells in the hearts of these Islamo-fascists. Let America see and remember.

yes exactly, and Daniel Perle. I am embarassed by Americans who talk big about what the USA will do "next time". This is the time to do whatever needs to be done. Now. Not next time. There should never be a next time.

Although there is more than meets the eye about Nick Berg and what he was doing in Iraq, we still cannot condone or forget what happened to him at the hands of this evil personified! Nothing and no one deserves this! There aren't even words to describe the type of thing that could do what they did to him.

27
posted on 05/13/2004 9:45:26 PM PDT
by ladyinred
(The left has blood on their hands, Again!)

Oh my, I feel so sorry for you student with opinions. You have much to learn and while I understand you are young, I can't quite get how you can think this way after seeing what these people are capable of. If you think putting panties and a leash on someone is the same as sawing off head, putting people in shredding machines, gassing them, ramming airplanes with passengers into occupied buildings, etc, then I pray you NEVER get in a position of power unless you grow up and get a clue first.

28
posted on 05/13/2004 9:49:04 PM PDT
by ladyinred
(The left has blood on their hands, Again!)

Islam has it's "bible-tumper's" just like Christian's have "Bible-Tumpers", or a person that takes their religion VERY serious. Those in Islam that take it very serious, are the militants of Islam. It could be said by them "CONVERT or DIE". This a religious war PERIOD. The statement Andrew McCarty made: Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. It is the most sinister, brutal, inhumane method of our age. But it is nonetheless just that: a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified  and identifiable  enemy. In the here and now, that enemy is militant Islam  a very particular practice and interpretation of a very particular set of religious, political and social principles. was right on. Good post thanks.

29
posted on 05/14/2004 2:45:41 AM PDT
by Phyto Chems
(Convert or DIE is there call --- but I remember Mr. Berg)

so you have a better opinion b/c you can identify bad sentece structure??

No, I have a better opinion because I can use the shift key, spell "sentence", and know that questions end with a single question mark.

the "sad part" is this kid that worked up the guts to put his opinion on this demented website is being picked apart by you people.

If you can't stand the heat, etc. Either he's an adult who should be mentally and emotionally prepared for any criticism that comes his way, or he's a child - in which case, he should shut up and sit back down in front of the Playstation when his betters are speaking.

i am happy that someone that age is thinking

I see no evidence of thought in that post at all. I see unformed and half-formed pablum, regurgitated in a rather illiterate and pedestrian manner. I have some passing familiarity with the public schools, so I've little doubt that during his school career, such bowel movements are generally rewarded by happy smiles and gold stars from his teachers. But this is not Vero Beach High School - I am not one of his idiot teachers, nor am I his mother. If the little troll needs his ego stroked every time he publicly dribbles urine down the front of his pants, neither of you are going to be happy here.

35
posted on 05/17/2004 10:46:22 AM PDT
by general_re
(Drive offensively - the life you save may be your own.)

When you use quotation marks, the punctuation immediately following it goes inside of the quotation marks, not after them, as in "sentence."

That's not even a grammatical rule in English, merely a convention handed down from lazy American printers who wished to avoid misaligning columns - the well-rounded reader will note that that exact opposite rule is in place in Britain, the very wellspring of the Queen's English. Do try to learn something about your own language before you presume to lecture others about it.

Also, one should not begin a sentence with a conjunction such as "but," as in, "But this is not Vero Beach..."

A completely nonexistent "rule", perpetuated by generations of spinster-like fourth grade grammar pedants. Starting a sentence with a conjunction is both perfectly acceptable and perfectly grammatical. If you had ever read Shakespeare, Burke, the King James Bible, Johnson, or any other of dozens of classical English works, written by genuine men of letters - which, obviously, you haven't - you would have unavoidably noted that all of them contain dozens of examples of sentences beginning with conjunctions. Don't take my word for it, though - walk down to your local library, and check out a book or two. This may be an unfamiliar experience for you, but there are many friendly people staffing the library whose job is to assist the novice reader.

I'll forgive you for only having a "passing familiarity" with public schools, but generally they encourage students to speak their minds as opposed to telling them to "shut up and sit back down."

Of course they do - it's so much easier that teaching them, isn't it? Just let them spill their guts about how they feel - nothing is more important than self-esteem, right? Certainly not mere information, anyway. It would be cruel and unusual of us to encumber their opinionating with anything so mundane as a fact or two, wouldn't it?

I am not offended by those who share their opinions. When the ignorant and the uneducated spout off, blessedly unhindered by any connection to reality, however, it wastes my time, and everyone else's here. I am not obligated in any rational sense to reward the execrable, and if you, sir or madam, are responsible for the odious state of the minds that produced the posts that precede and follow yours, you should be ashamed of yourself.

As far as the illiterate and pedestrian manner that you claim this 15-year-old expresses himself with, you might think about what manner you are using when you compare a child's thoughts to excrement, and if that manner is really from "his better."

Consider, for a moment, whether you are really doing the child a favor by lying to him, telling him that his manner, style, and content are praiseworthy, when they are in fact, patently illiterate. Consider, for a moment, which of us does the child a greater service in the long run - you, who lies to him, or me, who tells him the brutal, but honest, truth. Which one of us will prod the boy to actually become a better writer, and thereby a better thinker?

You feed your charges a steady diet of spun sugar and Jolt cola, and then you have the nerve to be surprised and offended when someone points out that their teeth are rotting out of their heads. Wake up, I urge you - stop lying to them, and educate them properly. If you can.

41
posted on 05/17/2004 1:17:55 PM PDT
by general_re
(Drive offensively - the life you save may be your own.)

Isn't it more fitting to follow American grammar rules in this situation rather than British ones?

My point is that it's hardly a "rule" in any meaningful sense at all - at best, it's a convention.

Regarding Shakespeare, the King James Bible, etc, while those are excellent and inspiring forms of literature, I'm not sure that there is a single English teacher or professor (even in America's public school system) that would teach grammar rules based on the form of Old English used in them.

You are, of course, joking. It's not a matter of teaching grammar based on Shakespeare - the point is that the conventional and traditional usage of English flies in the face of this rule. This should hardly be surprising, as the "rule" is no such thing - it was essentially spun out of whole cloth by Victorian pedants who insisted on forcing the language into their own peculiar straitjacket. Consider Edmund Burke's 1775 "Speech on Conciliation with America" - which, as a poster on a conservative website, you are naturally already familiar with:

The church of England too was formed from her cradle under the nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interest have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world; and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the diffidence of dissent; and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. .... Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point, is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging, passions and furious elements, and says, ' So far shalt thou go, and no farther.' Who are you, that should fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature ? .... In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering, in that science. .... The smartness of debate will say, that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my honourable and learned friend on the floor, who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that ground.

In the face of hundreds of years of counterexamples, it takes a rather perverse sense of correctness to insist that the "rule" is right, and the language itself is wrong! There is no "technical rule" against beginning sentences with conjunctions, and I highly doubt you can cite any grammatical authority who says otherwise, save perhaps for quibbling over stylistic issues therein.

The misspelling of "sentence" in my original post was obviously a typo, the two question marks were for emphasis, and I hardly think that I am the first to not use capital letters while posting on this website.

I doubt it. It's tolerably obvious that there are two or more people posting under the handle of Jacko's chimp. That would be the charitable explanation, anyway - a less generous inference from your wild swings in apparent compositional ability would be that you're mentally disturbed.

I do, however, wonder if I am the first to be attacked for that, or if you save attacks on grammar for people you have nothing else to say to.

What would you like me to say? I notice that you're not wasting any time in actually defending the original practical joke of a post. Wisely so, in my opinion - there is precious little of substance there to defend. It's a fairly empty-headed little thing, wrapped in a stinky little package. Unfortunately, that same lack of substance gives me little to grab hold of in forming a substantive critique - how can I discuss the substance of that post when there is none?

As far as the less than eloquent post of Student with Opinions, of course his post is not as grammatically-correct or as well thought out as one of yours; he is only in his second year of high school.

Yet he jumped right in here, spoiling for a fight, didn't he? What on earth did he expect would come of such a thing? A pat on the head and a welcoming smile? Send him back to the wading pool, and tell him to try again in a few years - he's not ready, and anyone who's telling him that what he produced is an acceptable form of public discourse, suitable for deployment in the real world, is bordering on educational malpractice. This is not an after-school bull session in the Model UN chapter, held under the close supervision of some authority figure, all in order to prepare the youngsters to sally forth into the arena of public discourse - this is the arena of public discourse. This is where the adults come to talk, not to indulge the foibles of the young and uneducated.

Of course, what our SWO has yet to learn - one of many things, actually - is that "adult" is as much a state of mind as anything else. There are a few posters here of approximately the same age as our hapless Student With Opinions - the difference, of course, is that the few young adults who manage to have a successful run at posting here are bright, reasonably literate for their age, and capable of suitable form and substance.

Oh, I suppose I shouldn't oversell it - you can get away with poor form. Hell, you can even get away with no substance, wrapped up in a pretty package around here - lots of people do it. But no form and no substance is a surefire path to irrelevancy, both here and in the rest of one's adult life. If Student With Opinions learns nothing else from his brief encounter with the unfiltered adult world, perhaps that would be the best thing to impress upon him - no form and no substance makes Jack a dull boy.

No one is claiming that he should be praised for his sentence structure, but for his courage in posting here, and for his interest in world affairs and politics, which is fairly rare among American teenagers.

Sorry, no dice. Courage unencumbered by a basis in reality is not praiseworthy, nor is it particularly rare - it is foolish, and all too common. To cast it in terms that the late SWO might relate to, MTV's "Jackass" is full of people who very courageously do all sorts of idiotic things. Pouring a can of gasoline over yourself and then striking matches requires a certain amount of courage to pull off, but the fact that courage inheres within does not suddenly make the act itself a good idea.

His interest is laudable - his ignorance is not. The remedy is education, which requires not speaking, but listening. I suspect that the late SWO is fairly typical of others his age - years of praise unconnected to any actual performance have given him a false sense of his own abilities. However, the rest of the world is suffering under no such delusion, to put it mildly. This is, in truth, not entirely SWO's fault - those who would claim to be educating him have clearly failed in their efforts. Given that the public schools are broken by design, it does not behoove us to be surprised that SWO is a fairly typical example of someone his age. What is mildly suprising is that occasionally the mental bonds put in place by the failures of the adults surrounding him prove inadequate, and a prototypical SWO is somehow able to escape the shackles of ignorance. With the proper internal motivation, and indulgent parents, he may find his way as a sort of autodidact, but he will find no escape from those shackles in the public schools - they are the ones who put him there, aided by well-meaning but unknowing parents, and they have no interest whatsoever in seeing him break free. Oh, yes - I know how the schools work.

Also not debatable is that this IS a child's opinion, not an adult's, and it doesn't deserve such a harsh reply. He would be better served to be told that he could use a little work in the grammar areas, etc, but I hardly think that the manner in which you replied was appropriate or deserved.

I think not. If and when you catch me wandering the halls of the Vero Beach public schools, berating random students for their intellectual inabilities, then you may have a point. But this is, as I said before, not Vero Beach high school, and what passes for discourse in study hall is of precious little use around here. You can be arrogant, or you can be ignorant, but combining the two as our little SWO did is not a recipe for success. If the boy insists on speaking to adults on their own terms, then let him be treated as an adult. Either he is an adult who must learn to suffer such slings and arrows on his own, or he is a child who requires his mother's skirts for protection from the wolves of the outside world, but he cannot have it both ways. He got exactly the response any adult who posted such inanities would deserve, and if he can't handle it, he doesn't belong here in the first place.

I thought that the opinions and ideas expressed here are more important than the style or grammar used to do so.

Absolutely. If, however, you think that this translates into "my opinions and ideas will never be challenged", you should seriously rethink what you're doing here. What "ideas" SWO managed to dribble forth were, by and large, ridiculous on their face - and in the real world, the ridiculous will tend to gather unto itself all the ridicule it so richly deserves. Unlike high school, the rest of the world will largely not concern itself with propping up your self-esteem, not if it means giving out a platform for the stupid, the insane, the ignorant, or the uneducated - nobody, other than you, really cares very much about how you feel about yourself. It's a harsh lesson, but the boy will remain a boy until he learns it, and learns to deal with it like a man.

45
posted on 05/17/2004 3:21:15 PM PDT
by general_re
(Drive offensively - the life you save may be your own.)

if you do choose to "Remember Nick Berg" have enough respect for his family to shut up. it really is sick that you feel you have the right to judge a man that has just lost so much. so before you post such insensitive remarks remember

Yeah, well, don't lecture us on what to post on this site. Most of us support it financially so you've got no grounds to complain, newbie.

Anyway...

I knew the Berg family and Nick was one of the finest people you'd ever meet. He was a devout Jew who deeply loved his country and wanted to share its greatness with the rest of the world.

i remember the first time nick and i met it was 1984 and we were on a second grade field trip to see the crayola factory. nick's father, michael was one of the chaperones. i can vividly recall michael on the bus ride there: for some reason, he'd opened his lunch despite the fact that it was only 9:15 in the morning and carefully lined up each item on the seatback in front of him- carrot sticks, celery sticks, a fruit cup, yougurt, cottage cheese, and a juice box. sure enough the bus hit a bump and his lunch went flying everywhere. "G-D DAMNIT!!! THIS IS ALL RONALD REAGAN'S FAULT!!! HE F-CKING KILLED MY LUNCH!!! M-THER F-CKING A$$H-LE" he yelled before the faculty orgainzer could restrain him.

several years later, in 7th grade, we were all assigned a project in which we needed to participate in a religious ceremony that was different from our own. since the class was overwhelmingly catholic, nick graciously offered to let his classmates come, one at a time, to his home for a friday night seder. as michael berg attempted to light the prayer candles and the match didn't strike on his first attempt he became enraged "M-THER F-CKER ROT IN HELL YOU SON OF A B-TCH GEORGE BUSH!!! YOU KILLED MY G-D DAMN MATCH!!!" he then picked up the candle, hurled it through a sliding glass door and as he ran out of the room was heard to yell "I WILL NOT BE A SLAVE TO GEORGE BUSH'S MATCH MAKING CABAL!!!" nick appologized for his father's bizzare behaviour and led his family and i through a fascinating cermemony. as we finished our meal, michael berg emerged when nick's mother called out that we were having pudding.

michael sat back at the head of the table and mrs. berg tucked a napkin into his shirt collar. michael began to fumble with the release ring on the top of the pudding container, twisting it in every manner and even wedging his spoon in there. slowly, a gutteral rumbling emerged from his throat and a string of profanities that could have only been conjured in the very pits of hell came from his mouth. i was stunned and frightened to say the least and my fear only escalated as a foam began to froth up from his mouth and down his chin. i honestly feared for my life as he took the can of pudding and began smashing it violently against his forhead releasing a thick foam of chocolate and blood. "G-D DAMN YOU NEWT GINGRICH!!! THIS IS ALL PART OF YOUR M-THER F-CKING PUDDING CONSPIRACY AND I WILL NOT BE YOUR PAWN!!! NOW, YOU PATRIOTIC BASTARD, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE... I WILL KILL YOU!!!he screeched as i cowered under the table.

it wasn't until nick's mom called out "Who want's chocolate pudding with MED-I-CINE in it?" and i could see from under the table that michael berg had been released from a fit of St. Vitus dance that i ran like a shot out of the home never to return.

Somehow, i have to speculate that an upbringing like this may have led nick to think he was a little less suceptable to danger than others would. just speculation.

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